 | Ypulse Daily Update 07.15.09
Directory and more at Ypulse.com | |  | Quick Links Ypulse Essentials: Russel Brand Back For VMAs, BlackBox, Generation M Manifesto Posted by meredith  Russell Brand is back hosting VMAs (after raising some concerns last time around with his not-so-tween friendly fare. Plus Savage County MTV's new web horror series featuring killer hillbillies. And MTV's internal survey on what video ads work best) (Variety) (Scripps News) (News.com)
- Back-to-school bargains (not surprisingly in high demand this year. And more on JC Penney's teen-targeted "Smart Looks for Less" campaign) (Los Angeles Times) (MediaPost, reg. required)
- BlackBox (Is a sex positive approach to dating sites also a response to Gen Y social network fatigue?) (ZDNet)
- Soulja Boy remix app (debuts as the first of what will apparently be a regular feature from Universal Music Group artists. For $5? Hmmm....And a "purity ring" app for virgins or born again virgins. Plus students fined for using their cell phones in school) (TechCrunch) (textually.org)
- The Generation M Manifesto (a break up letter from Millennial Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, to older generations. Also Globalistic, a book of essays and opinions from the "Millennial classroom") (Harvard Business)
- New educational startup Karooba (uses the SmartyCard model of points/rewards for playing learning games. And Beacon Street Girls joins Miss O in the tween virtual worlds neighborhood. Also details on the campaign for Disney's Wizards of Wavery Place movie. Plus a profile on tween marketer turned YA author Tina Wells) (Derek Baird) (Philadelphia Inquirer)
- 'Check Yourself' (a very cool campaign from PONY, who teams up with the Keep A Breast Foundation. for a new line that raises awareness and donates to the cause)
- Fbomb strikes a chord (with adults. The teen feminist blog we mentioned last week may have a ways to go to reach teens. Plus what happens in teenaged girls' brains as they seek peer approval) (Jezebel) (Science Daily)
- Coffee chain encourages Gen Y-ers to rock out (Gloria Jeans challenges employees to compete in a battle of the bands competition)
- SLJ spotlights culturally diverse comics (with a long, excellent list of reads. Plus a new cover story on Justina Chen Headley's North of Beautiful from Melissa Walker)
Posted in: Ypulse Essentials Midnight @ The Theater With 'The Harry Potter Teens' Posted by anastasia  Last night my husband and I made our way to the midnight opening of the sixth Harry Potter installment: "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." While I've read all of the books (the last one, twice) and seen all of the movies multiple times, my husband has mostly just seen the movies (with me) and complains about how Dumbledore always shows up at the end with some kind of cheesy lesson for Harry. I think he was happy with last night's ending though I was quite teary-eyed.
At 37, apart from the sprinkling of parents accompanying their teens, I think we may have been the oldest people in the theater. My husband seemed proud that he stayed awake while the pierced, teen guy sitting next to him crashed midway through the movie. I would say the average age of the audience was 16-17 -- "Harry Potter teens" -- who have, like the stars of the films, grown up reading the books and watching the movies. There were a few capes and wands but more Urban Outfitter versions of "Hogwarts-style" school uniforms, short plaid skirts with thigh high stockings and a couple of guys with "the scar" drawn on their foreheads.
In a way I was jealous of these teens for having such a beloved series of books and being able to experience them on so many platforms -- the movies, online fan communities and next year, the amusement park. Even though I read fantasy as a teen (A Wrinkle In Time, The Hobbit), there was no well-oiled multi-media/multi-platform machine in place to create a universe on the scale of Harry Potter.
My husband mused about how dark the series gets and wondered about the 8 or 9 year olds who are just starting the books now and whether parents let them read the whole series or wait for the later books with darker themes or wait to watch the later films on DVD. I have a feeling my YA librarian readers have lots of opinions on this one, but what struck me most about the audience last night was that they had grown up with the character of Harry Potter -- and could now relate to all of the 16-17 year-old awkwardness around teen romance that offers most of the comic relief in "Half Blood Prince."
Sorta Related:
Help! My Ten-Year-Old Wants to Read Twilight (School Library Journal)
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Posted in: Ypulse Essentials | Books | Movies | Page To Screen A Virtual Peek Into The 80 Million Strong Summit Posted by meredith Living up to their reputation as a generation of civic minded activists, the Millennial-driven non-partisan coalition 80 Million Strong for Young American Jobs is currently convening in Washington, D.C. to dive into the disconcertingly high youth unemployment rate -- twice the national percentage at 15.5% -- along with other pressing issues such as health care and debt that face young people today. Throughout the two days, attendees are also partaking in a process of proposing, voting and physically lobbying for policies meant to address these hardships. Impressed? Intrigued? Hopeful but skeptical that this optimistic, yet pragmatic approach will really get the job, excuse the pun, done?
So was I. And with the question of how to keep an energetic youth vote engaged fresh in mind from the Personal Democracy Forum, and the threat and fear of the downturn only becoming more palpable among my peers and in my newsfeed, I tuned in with interest via the live-blog and Twitter to see just what this intersection of young people and government officials -- speakers include White House Chief Economist Jared Bernstein, Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Current Majority Leader Steny Hoyer -- would produce. So far, though the conference has stumbled through a few obstacles including tech issues and moderator difficulties, it's also stirred up some interesting ideas. A few highlights that I thought would strike a chord with Ypulse readers...
Fostering the Love Between Young People and Public Service.
The top policies for public service:
1) Establishing a Public Service Academy
2) Creating a Tax-free Education Award
3) Making AmeriCorps more viable for lower-income people by raising wages
Not a surprising list of recommendations from a conference full of non-profits, but the growing appeal of the public service industry to Gen Y has undeniably spread with recent research on college students identifying healthcare, education and non-profits, as the top three industries to explore a career in, and the State Department, Teach for America and Peace Corps as the most desirable employers (for the same poll 10 years ago, Gen X chose Microsoft and Cisco). Promising? Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior noted that 40 percent in the Department of the Interior will turnover within the next four years, as will other government agencies full of Boomers.
Equal Access to Internships
The top policies for internships:
1) Grants/loans towards summer internships don't count toward student's total aid/allowable amount
2) Government sponsored transportation/housing assistance during internships
You can't get experience without an entry level job, and you can't get an entry-level job without experience. Not so much a riddle, as the catch-22 circumstance that compels anyone with a hope of entering a competitive industry after college to seek out internships. As Youth Advisory Board member Bernadette put it in her recent post, "a rite of passage." Addressing the obstacles that prevent access is one of the more positive ways to approach the situation, meanwhile, others take a more opportunistic route.
More Than A New Curriculum
The top policies for education:
1) Community Scholars Program - free state university education for low-income students in exchange for volunteer public service.
2) Developing a curriculum to implement in high schools that includes aspects of financial literacy
3) Finding solutions to student loan/debt crisis
4) Pass the Dream Act - legal residency for undocumented students
It's a tall order, but steps like colleges offering grants to students who defer a year for public service, and President Obama proposing to sink nearly $12 billion into revamping the country's community-college system to account and provide for the rapid increase in students are promising steps toward making higher education affordable.
Vive Youth Entrepreneurship!
Top policies for youth entrepreneurship:
1) Youth Innovation Fund - government grants for young social entrepreneurs
2) Encourage creation of "Youth Entrepreneurial Resource Centers"
3) Amend the Small Business Act to include young Americans 16-29 for 7(m) micro-loans
We've come across a lot of amazing young entrepreneurs (flashback to our Totally Wired panel at Mashup) in our time, and the idea of incentivizing and enabling these types of ventures seems not only timely, but worthwhile.
Whether Congress will actually adopt the policies lobbied for by these Millennial advocates remains to be seen. But the call to action and the onus to respond is now officially out there. Posted in: Ypulse Essentials | Books | Movies | Page To Screen | Education
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